The profession of cartographer is one that has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years and has always required great skill, patience, and knowledge, and these days, though the tools have changed, the skills required are still basically the same. Cartography, the art, science, and profession of map making, is a job that people have relied on for a long time, and though we might laugh now at early maps from past eras, we know they served a valuable purpose for the age, and often times the cartographers of the past did an incredible job with the information they had. These days, almost all the work of a professional cartographer is done on the computer using GIS. GIS stands for geographic information systems, and GIS is a combination tool which brings together elements of cartography, statistics, and databases to create new maps for the 21st century which are not only digital, but also rich with information so that locations can be linked to data in many different ways, creating maps which are easily manipulated and analyzed to provide extremely useful information to people who need to use them. In an age where the work that cartographers used to do can be done almost exclusively with satellite imaging, the job of a cartographer has adapted to become one of not just creating maps of locations, but maps of information. Software like ArcGIS is essential for the cartographer of today, and you'll need to be good with computers moving forward if you want to get into this career.

But you came here for salary information, so let's get down to the numbers. First, let's cover a few basics in terms of factors that will affect your salary. These factors are more or less the same in almost any profession though they change a bit with cartography. Who you work for is one of the more important factors, with the private sector usually paying more than the public sector in most any profession. When it comes to cartographers, the vast majority are employed by local, state, or federal governments, so that isn't as much of a factor, though in most instances, the bigger the government employing you, the more money you'll make. Next, where in the country you work makes a difference as well. Most cities and states will compensate for increased cost of living with salary, meaning that you might make $60 thousand per year in New York City, but make $40 thousand in Atlanta and essentially be making the same amount of money. Third is experience and skill. Skill is more relevant here because cartography has morphed so much in the last ten or fifteen years that some of the most experienced people are no longer relevant in the field. This is the same in any highly technological field, so that's good news for young people with a lot of talent because you might find yourself coming in at the top range of salaries very early in your career.

So now that we know the factors, let's take a look at the actual numbers. On average, in total pay cartographers make beteween thirty six thousand dollars per year ($36,000/year) and sixty thousand dollars per year ($60,000/year). Obviously, this is just a range of averages taken from various parts of the country, so it's very possible that you might make some amount of money on the outside of this range (hopefully on the high end). The factors we mentioned above are all going to affect where in that range or where outside that range you fall in terms of salary. A cartographer salary is pretty good, but many GIS cartographers will take on additional projects for research purposes for organizations and things like that in order to bring in more money. There are a ton of organizations out there, whether they be government funded organizations, NGOs which need maps and data to do their work better, or Universities looking to publish major studies, as well as urban development design companies which might like to get some data on the potential impact of a project for their reports. In this way, cartographers are able to bring in a lot of extra money for themselves and can make anywhere between a few thousand and up to twenty thousand (or even more) extra dollars per year if they get a little lucky with finding work and work really hard to get all of their jobs done. It is possible to make a living completely as a freelance cartographer as well if you don't have a completely regular gig working for the government.

We hope that we provided some helpful information to you and that you use the information you got here to springboard you forward into more research related to a career in cartography. There really is something very exciting about being able to map out and investigate the world around you. If you like cartography and creating maps that can make a huge difference in how the people doing really important work can see and understand the world, you can make a huge difference with your career moving forward. We wish you the best of luck with everything.

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